If You Dropped Out of College…

For those of you who dropped out of college and want to finish your undergrad degree, you may want to consider the online university, Western Governors University. I’m sharing this on my blog because I actually shared the URL with many of my tech friends who dropped out. I found an ad for WGU in some tech magazine (maybe TechNet?) and it made me curious. Here’s what I found:

Its accredited by the same org that accredits traditional universities (such as BYU), Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. It also earned some other national accreditation and was the first online and first non-traditional program to do so.

Members of Sun and HP are on the board of trustees and a ton of big companies are listed as corporate collaborators including AT&T, Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Qwest, Sun and HP.

It’s only about $5,000 or $6000 a year

The CEO of Google said: “Google has pioneered the idea of access to information. The reason Google thinks WGU is such a good idea is because WGU has pioneered the concept of competency- based education whenever you want it.”

Chrissy is a PowerShell MVP who has worked in IT for nearly 20 years, and currently serves as a Sr. Database Engineer in Belgium. Always an avid scripter, she attended the Monad session at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles back in 2005 and has worked and played with PowerShell ever since. Chrissy is currently pursuing an MS in Systems Engineering at Regis University and helps maintain
RealCajunRecipes.com in her spare time. She holds a number of certifications, including those relating to SQL Server, SuSE Linux, SharePoint and network security. She recently became co-lead of the SQL PASS PowerShell Virtual Chapter. You can follow her on Twitter at @cl.

3 comments on “If You Dropped Out of College…”

I have been looking at WGU for a few weeks now. One of my Coworkers just started going there to get his MBA. The costs are what are really pushing me that way since it would cost close to 25k for a full BS from UW.

That’s awesome! How does your friend like it? How did you guys hear about it? I considered it for my masters but my school takes off 2 entire classes for the MSIS for undergrads with good GPAs (>3.5). That leaves me with just 10! I start classes Tuesday and hope to graduate in 09 if all goes well with my shoulder.

Interesting, I hadn’t really looked at WGU. I’ve been looking for an online program that was respected, accredited, but gave some competency equivalents without appearing shifty. ( I have 11 years in IT and a few certifications). If you pass competency exams, does it take less time with WGU ?